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How the Humane Society Uses Social Media for Good #FindingTheGood

This is the second post in Mashable's Summer of Social Good series on #FindingTheGood, a week of posts dedicated to profiling charitable initiatives using social media. The Humane Society of the United States is one of the four Summer of Social Good charities.

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is the nation's largest organization working to end animal cruelty. Animals are voiceless to speak out against the cruelty they face every day from things like puppy mills and animal testing, dog fighting and abuse, abandonment and neglect. HSUS works to celebrate animals and to protect them from inhumane treatment.

The organization was founded in 1954 and seeks to create a "a humane and sustainable world for all animals," by advocating for policy changes to protect animals and the enforcement of existing laws, educating the public, and rescuing pets and other animals who have faced abuse or abandonment, or were left behind during a natural disaster.

Using social media

HSUS is an avid user of social media. The Humane Society started utilizing social media early on by establishing a profile on MySpace, at a time when it was still the leading social networking destination, and later expanded to other networks. More recently, HSUS has focused most of their efforts on Facebook and Twitter because they have been getting the most attention, though the organization has active presences on many social networks, including YouTube, Care2, and Change.org (you can view all of their social profiles on their connect to us page).

"Our goals for social media tie to our organization's vision of building a movement to confront animal cruelty and celebrate animals worldwide," said Carie Lewis, the Internet Marketing Manager for HSUS. In addition to connecting with current supporters and using social media to encourage the spread of information and awareness, social media tools have actually helped the Human Society measurably reach new people.

"Social media was the driving force behind our success with our second annual Spay Day Online Pet Photo Contest," Lewis told me, which this February raised over $600,000 from over 40,000 entrants. "We attribute much of that to the fact that we enabled sharing opportunities. Facebook was the number one referrer to the photo contest website, and the Facebook app had a utilization rate of 60%. Also, only 42% of the entrants came from existing HSUS members."

By focusing marketing efforts on social media sites, HSUS has been able to tap the viral nature of such sites and spread their message to new people.

Creating live information hubs

This week, the Humane Society International (HSI) is attending the International Whaling Commission's annual meeting on the island of Madeira in Portugal. HSI believes that the Whaling Commission should stop trying to save an industry that has generally become unacceptable internationally, and instead work toward the conservation of the remaining whale population.

HSI is involving social media very thoroughly in their campaign to end whaling and save the whales. They're using the Facebook Causes application to collect donations, raise awareness, and gather petition signatures, and they're using Twitter to broadcast and publish live tweet dispatches directly from the meeting by using the hashtag #IWC. They've also created web badges for MySpace users and bloggers to display on their pages.

Using social media to supplement their campaigns is something that HSUS and HSI do a lot of. They have 12 active campaigns in the Facebook Causes application alone, for example. But social media isn't easy, and HSI is committed to making it work. Said Carie Lewis: "You have to take the time to build trust, and really roll up your sleeves and get dirty. [Social media] takes a lot of time and efforts, but if done right, can really pay off."

Participate in #FindingTheGood

From now until Thursday, June 25th, we encourage you to participate in a #FindingTheGood scavenger hunt. Tell us about how individuals, organizations, or even you, are using social media for a good cause by leaving us more information in the comments of our #FindingTheGood announcement post or tweeting to us at our @SocialGood account with the hashtag #FindingTheGood. This Friday, we’ll feature some of our favorite finds in a round-up on Mashable.

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